Vice, The New Paperboy

Today’s post is about Vice and I'm not talking about the bad things that people do. I'm talking about Vice magazine which ironically is an online news service they also distribute a magazine. In recent years Vice has garnered a good deal of attention since joining YouTube in 2005. The Vice channel has 6,382,283 subscribers in contrast CNN's YouTube channel has 1,052,862. That being said CNN only joined the party last year, but that’s the point I’m trying to make. Vice was one of the first major news services to join YouTube and as a result they were able to carve out their territory without much competition.

Numbers and early entry are great and everything but eventually stories get boring and viewers get bored too. This is where Vice excels, Vice and its reporters in my opinion are all crazy they get right into the heart of a story they are always up close and personal with news. This is what sets them aside from other agencies. Their YouTube channel is littered with coverage from wars in the Middle East, drug cartels, and any other dangerous thing you can think of. They even have an episode where they try to buy a nuclear weapon on the black market. They cover stories that normal news agencies won’t cover and this draws viewers in. In all of these episodes the reporters are right in the action, getting shot or running from bullets. That’s what keeps the viewers interested, engaged, and coming back for more.

Now I heard about Vice through word of mouth and the first video I actually watched was about the conflict in Syria. As I scrolled through the channel I saw more videos similar in nature to the Syria video. Vice did a three part series on what Afghanistan is like now after the major conflict. There was another video were a reporter went to a remote region in Pakistan and bought handmade guns at an open air market. 

The videos seemed to carry an activist attitude which something that the millennial generation is known for. This activist voice combined with a large online presence is what has made Vice so popular so quickly. Millennials weren’t getting the news they wanted from other sources online Vice saw a gap in the market filled it and successfully promoted themselves at the same time. Vice could be characterized as the new kid in town who’s a bit edgy and gets into the occasional scuff but everyone knows his name. Ultimately this new kid bad boy attitude is the key to Vice’s success.